Patients subjected to stationary medical treatment or monitoring are commonly connected to a varying number of well known monitoring and/or supply systems. Dependent on the nature of the treatment and/or monitoring and the technology employed, electrical wires or cables, wireless signals, supply hoses and/or vacuum hoses may be connected to the patient. With increasing number of wires, cables and hoses, efficient and fast connecting and disconnecting of a patient becomes increasingly cumbersome and time consuming. Free hanging wires, cables and/or hoses may likely entangle with each other. Moreover, during transport or transfer of a bedded patient for example in an ambulance or rescue helicopter, wires, cables and hoses of excessive length may bounce around. Therefore, there exists a need for a system that provides for extendable and automatically retracting patient connect cables, wires and/or hoses. The present invention addresses this need.
Medical patients commonly require a specific combination of fluid supplies via hoses and/or monitoring via wires, cables, hoses or via wireless transducers connected to the patient as is well known in the art. This is commonly accomplished by a number of different devices and fixtures placed adjacent the patient bed, which may impair direct access to the patient. Therefore, there exists a need for a patient connect hub that may be centrally accessed by different monitoring devices and that may be modularly configured with varying cartridges for supplying and/or monitoring a patient via wires, cables, hoses and/or wireless transducers. The present invention addresses also this need.
After each use, patient connect cables and hoses need to be cleaned and sterilized. This is commonly done in a manual fashion, which is time consuming. Attempts to automatically wipe and sterilize wires while retracted in a motored fashion bears the risk of uncontrollable contamination and clogging of housed and hidden components inside the housing into which the respective cable or wire is retracted. Therefore, there exists a need for reliable accessing, as well as cleaning and sterilizing of spooled patient connect wires, cables and hoses. The present invention addresses also this need.
Patient supply fluids such as blood are commonly packaged in elastic bags monolithically combined with a hose via which the fluid is transported to the patient. The fluids are filled into that bag via the hose under stringent hygiene condition. Nevertheless, during storage, transportation and usage, these bags may be exposed to direct light, temperature, unhygienic environments and mechanical impact. Therefore, there exists a need for a fluid supply cartridge that provides shielding against sunlight, temperature variations, unhygienic environments and mechanical impact. The present invention addresses also this need.
Wireless patient data collection becomes increasingly attractive. Unfortunately, common existing patient connect systems are configured for wire and cable based patient access. Since replacing entire monitoring systems may be cost intensive, there exists a need for a bridging interface between cable and wire based patient connect devices and wireless patient data collecting subsystems. The present invention addresses also this need.